Each and every year, airport traffic continues to increase. As the volume of aircraft arriving and departing at an airport increases, the one resource that stands out as a bottle neck is the airport runway. When an aircraft prepares to depart, it typically requires authorization from a control authority (e.g. a control tower). The control authority permits an aircraft to use the runway as soon as the runway becomes available. Inbound aircraft are typically staggered in time to allow outbound aircraft an opportunity to use the runway. When an inbound aircraft touches down, it is important to clear the runway as quickly as possible so as to provide additional availability of this precious airport resource.
Aircraft pilots are bombarded with information provided by onboard instrumentation. In addition to all of this onboard information, an aircraft pilot must maintain cognizance with respect to the position of the aircraft relative to the runway, aircraft speed, weather conditions and many other operational parameters. Most importantly, the aircraft pilot is still responsible for the safe arrival of the aircraft beginning with a landing sequence through arrival at a passenger gate. It should be noted that not all aircraft are destined to arrive at a passenger gate. For example, aircraft can be directed to a fuel station, maintenance hangar or other logistical support facility.
Clearing an arriving aircraft from a runway requires immediate discretion on behalf of a pilot in order to select a runway egress. In order to select a runway egress, a pilot first needs to know the destination to which the aircraft must taxi. Accordingly, the pilot needs to be aware of all of the runway egresses available at a particular airport. The pilot also needs to quickly ascertain which of the available runway egresses are acceptable in order to accommodate a particular taxi destination. For example, if a particular taxi destination is situated east of a runway, there is little benefit in using a westbound runway egress.
Selection of a particular runway egress continues to be a function of numerous operational parameters. For example, a particular runway egress may not be acceptable if the aircraft is moving forward at an exaggerated speed. In fact, the turn angle of a runway egress may be one factor that can be used in conjunction with the speed of the aircraft as a runway egress selection is made. As can be appreciated, selection of a particular runway egress is typically based on numerous operational parameters. What makes the problem worse is that many of the operational parameters are dynamic in nature. Consider, for example, that the turn angle of a runway egress may have differing safe speed criteria depending upon the weight of an aircraft and depending on the surface conditions of the runway and an adjoining taxi path.
Consistent with the goal of quickly clearing a runway, a pilot needs to make a selection of a particular runway egress as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, a pilot may not be able to effectively predict dynamic acceptance criteria for a particular runway egress. As such, a pilot may need to refrain from selecting a runway egress until operational parameters and acceptance criteria can be confidently ascertained. As a result, the pilot may not select the earliest, safe egress opportunity.